July 24, 2015

24th July 2015 - Important Current Affairs updates

Clamping down on mis-labelling of 'Health Supplements', food safety regulator FSSAI proposed banning sale of these products as 'medicines' and announced new norms for products based on Ayurveda, Sidhha, Unani and other traditional health systems.

Under the new draft regulations announced, the companies can't claim that their nutraceuticals and health supplement products are for therapeutic and curative purposes.

The Centre has approved Rs 2,801 crore for relief of hailstorm-affected farmers in Uttar Pradesh.

The decision has been taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Note : The NDA government has changed the norms for giving compensation to farmers whose crops were damaged up to 33 per cent, earlier it was limited upto 50 per cent.

The Supreme Court today directed the central government and all the states to install CCTV cameras in all the prisons across the country and take a call on installing them in police lock-ups, if there are incidents.

SC directs states to set up human rights commissions, asks existing ones to fill vacant posts within 3 months

The court also mandates 2 women constables in every police station.

MOUs

India and neighbouring Myanmar and Thailand are going to sign the much awaited Motor Vehicle Agreement in December this year.

This agreement is going to be implemented next year.

Note : This agreement will pave the way for movement of cargo and personal vehicles between the 3 countries.

Business & Economy

Seven Indian companies, including Reliance Industries and Tata Motors, are among the world's 500 largest companies, according to a list compiled by Fortune.

The list has been topped by retail giant Walmart.

Top 5 Companies in the list :

Walmart

Sinopec Group

Royal Dutch Shell

China National Petroleum

Exxon Mobil

Indian Companies in the List :

Indian Oil - 119th Rank

Reliance Industries - 158 Rank

Tata Motors - 254th Rank

State Bank of India - 260th Rank

Bharat Petroleum - 280th Rank

Hindustan Petroleum - 327th Rank

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation- 449th Rank

People in News

The nine-member special committee of Hockey India (HI) headed by Olympian Harbinder Singh that met today recommended the removal of Paul van Ass as chief coach of the national men's hockey team.

Note : Van Ass will be the fourth coach in five years to get sacked by HI.

Roelant Oltmans, who is already in-charge of the hockey camp in Shimla, is expected to lead the team into the Rio Olympics 2016 to be held in Brazil.

New Appointments

Ajay Mathur, director-general of the bureau of energy efficiency, has been appointed as the new DG of TERI.

Mr Mathur has served in leadership positions at the World Bank as director, interim secretariat, Green Climate Fund in Bonn, and in the private sector in India.